It is a time of darkness. With the end of the Clone Wars, and the destruction of the Jedi Order, the evil Emperor Palpatine rules the galaxy unopposed.
Far away, in the unknown regions of Wild Space beyond Imperial borders, MILO and LINA GRAF accompany their explorer parents on their expeditions.
As the Grafs scout a remote and unmapped swamp-world, the shadow of the Empire draws ever nearer...
Adventures In Wild Space is a series of Star Wars Expanded Universe children's novels by Cavan Scott and Tom Huddleston, focusing on the journey of two children, Milo and Lina Graf, through Wild Space, on the search for their parents, who have been taken captive by the recently established Galactic Empire to exploit their exploration and mapping skills.
The series is aimed towards younger kids, containing the typical galactic criminal scum such as bounty hunters and crime syndicates that the Graf siblings run into, as well as a few recanonizations of throwaway planets and terms previously used in Legends. The books are mostly isolated from other works in the Expanded Universe, leaving the date of occurrence for the events unknown, up until The Steal, which ties into the series by having the Graf siblings land on Lothal to meet the Bridgers.
The series received a distant sequel, the Tales from Wild Space short stories, in the Adventures comic series.
- The Escape (February 25, 2016 [UK]/December 13, 2016 [US])
- The Snare (February 25, 2016 [UK]/January 3, 2017 [US])
- The Nest (February 25, 2016 [UK]/January 3, 2017 [US])
- The Steal note (June 30, 2016 [UK]/April 11, 2017 [US])
- The Dark note (June 30, 2016 [UK]/August 15, 2017 [US])
- The Cold (March 9, 2017 [UK]/October 24, 2017 [US])
- The Rescue (May 4, 2017 [UK]/April 10, 2018 [US])
The series contains the following tropes:
- Ambiguous Time Period:
- In "The Steal", we meet the Bridgers. Ezra is only a baby, but according to All There in the Manual, he should be at least five (so he should've shown up as a small child instead) as the Bridgers don't begin their broadcasts until fourteen years before the Battle of Yavin, unless this piece of information from All There in the Manual has been Retconed. Then Vizago says that Governor Azadi only has a month until the Empire steps in to deal with the broadcasts, which makes this even more confusing unless Azadi's deadline was moved.
- "The Rescue" reveals that the events of Tarkin have already happened — the same year the Bridger transmissions began according to All There in the Manual, meaning Ezra should be in the five to seven-year old range.
- Bad Boss: Korda bullies his subordinates.
- Bat Out of Hell: While piloting the Whisper Bird on Graf-World, the siblings are attacked by kinor bats when explosions set them into a scare.
- Big Bad: Imperial Captain Korda was sent to take the Graf couple into custody, but now he has to go after Lina and Milo as well. He still has to juggle around cataloging worlds in Wild Space (which he finds boring, pointless, and uneventful), so in The Steal, he hires bounty hunter the Shade to go after the kids. And then it turns out that he's only Disc-One Final Boss.
- Bittersweet Ending/Happy Ending Override: The kids reunite with their parents, and they decide to return to Lothal to help the Bridgers speak out against the Empire. As anyone who has watched Rebels can tell you, it won't go over well. The fates of the Grafs are later addressed in Adventures, however.
- Brother–Sister Team: Milo and Lina. Lina is the older sibling.
- Call-Back:
- In "The Dark", we meet a Lasat named Davin. He's being hunted down by a bounty hunter who was hired by the Empire, suggesting that the Siege of Lasan has already happened, as Lasats were still being arrested and persecuted after the massacre as we see in "Legends of the Lasat" in Rebels.
- In "The Rescue", the Carrion Spike from Tarkin appears.
- Call-Forward:
- Several to Rebels in The Steal, by virtue of being on Lothal.
- The kids end up getting tied up in criminal business, and among the scum is Vizago, who has mentioned that he hates kids back in "Brothers of the Broken Horn". But it turns out that earlier on, he used to work under a Mon Cala crime boss named Rask Odai.
- We get to see how the Broken Horn Syndicate came to be; it used to be a Lothal storage company called the Twin Horns Storage, which was actually a front for Odai's criminal ops. Vizago had two perfectly fine horns... until the bounty hunter, the Shade, who was sent to apprehend the kids, got in a fight with him and broke his left horn. So now we know.
- We end up meeting the Bridgers, who apparently have been doing transmissions not too long after the rise of the Empire, having been at it at least six months into it.
- A KX-series security droid appears in "The Rescue", and unfortunately, K-4D8 is still programmed to be an Imperial.
- Several to Rebels in The Steal, by virtue of being on Lothal.
- Canon Immigrant: While the book series is for elementary school readers and not quite for older readers, it still takes advantage of being a Star Wars Expanded Universe by recanonizing throwaway ideas from Legends.
- 'Monster droid' is used to describe CR-8R, who is a droid built up of other droid model parts. It was first mentioned in Absolutely Everything You Need to Know as what Jawas are known for creating, but CR-8R is our first canon confirmation that he is a monster droid.
- Rikknits are mentioned as their eggs having the stench of filthy swamp water when rotten. In Legends, these eggs were a delicacy and the source of its homeworld New Plympto's economic wealth up until Chancellor Valorum declared the species as protected, due to decrease in Rikknit population. Abandoned by commercial interests, New Plympto joined the Separatists with the promise of reviving its market and economy.
- The siblings run into some creepervines while on Graf-World, previously used in Scholastic's Episode 1 Adventures. Although this is more under Broad Strokes as Graf-world Creepervines are far more carnivorous and look part reptile.
- Clip beetles are edible by certain species like the Sullustans and Kowakian Lizard-Monkeys. Not only are they nutritious, but in Legends, a number of them could be used to close wounds with their strong mandibles, believing it to be food. They were genetically created by the Yuuzhan Vong, who would have appeared in an episode of The Clone Wars had it not been canceled. The origin of the clip beetles in new canon is ambiguous, making this a case of Schrödinger's Canon.
- Captain Korda threatens to send Dil Pexton to an Imperial prison camp on Kalaan if he doesn't betray Lina. Kalaan is from the Legends computer game, Force Commander, where after the Battle of Yavin, the Empire completely decimates the Rebel base there and the entire planet into a desert, with the survivors attempting to continue the resistance. There actually is a prison there, which Luke broke out of with help from the original characters.
- Shalla gives Lina berbersian crab salad to eat. In Death Star, it's an Imperial mess hall dish, albeit just the crab and not as a salad.
- Vizago's blaster is called Vilmarh's Revenge. Vilmarh was a notorious Devaronian scoundrel in Legends, featured most prominently in Republic.
- The Cameo:
- Darth Vader appears in holocalls with Korda a couple of times.
- Mira Bridger makes a rebel transmission towards the end of "The Nest" as a Sequel Hook to "The Steal".
- Children Are Innocent: The Graf siblings are adverse to killing, nevermind killing wildlife for mere pride in the sport, considering their family are explorers and enjoy nature. This is how they end up finding an enemy in Gozetta and her hunters in The Snare.
- Continuity Nod:
- A couple of sentient species are borrowed from The Force Awakens, like Dowutins and Onodones.
- CR-8R is an architect droid (or at least his head is), the same model Professor Huyang was.
- Governor Azadi is mentioned in "The Call", being an ally of the Bridgers and getting in deep trouble with the Empire if he can't find whoever is behind the rebel transmissions soon.
- Doctor Cylo-V is mentioned in The Dark.
- Thunian wart-hornets are mentioned as having similar multicolored wings like Gorsian dragonflies, which are native to Gorse.
- When CR-8R analyzes Nazgorigan, he reveals that the Jablogian homeworld is Nar Kanji; the same world where Kanjiklub arose from.
- The rebel transmission in The Nest brings up an example of the Empire's tyranny by using another transmission from Dinwa Prime. About a year and a half after the Battle of Yavin, the world is among the listed by Thane as examples of the Empire's war crimes when he first chats with Wedge.
- Brentaal IV is mentioned in The Dark. Pirate queen Q'anah hailed from this planet before being killed in Tarkin about 30 years before the story of the Grafs.
- Krennic is mentioned in "The Rescue", as the series takes place between the scenes of Catalyst.
- Cool Ship: It's just a Mu-class shuttle, but the Grafs' Whisper Bird is where the siblings were born, and eventually commandeer when their parents go missing. Korda later takes/steals the Star Herald, a Super Prototype scouting ship the Empire was developing, but the kids end up taking it after he is defeated it.
- Determinator: Considering they've managed to fare quite well for children that can't be much older than ten years, considering they've been through the dangerous wilderness of... well, Wild Space, doing dirty work for crime syndicates and escaping bounty hunters, and also going against The Empire despite all odds, is quite a list of impressive feats.
- Disappeared Dad / Missing Mom: They're imprisoned by the Empire, somewhere, kicking off this story.
- Disk-One Final Boss: Korda is defeated in the penultimate book... and then is replaced by Tarkin as the antagonist of the final book.
- Egomaniac Hunter: Gozetta and her little posse of hunters are the antagonists of The Nest.
- Expy:
- CR-8R is one of C3-PO, though not as whiny.
- Nazgorigan is one of Azmorigan, up to both being a Jablogian and greedy criminal scum. Apparently, Jablogians are Too Important to Walk and are often overweight, according to a description of him. The difference between him and Azmorigan is that Nazgorigan is a lone trader and Con Man, and isn't much trouble for the protagonists besides conning them into wasting a couple of credits on his supposed insect repellent (it was actually just canal water from Thune's ports).
- False Friend:
- The Shade in her civilian identity, Shalla Mondatha, pretends to be a chef and feeds the hungry Lina in an attempt to earn her trust.
- Stel, who claims to the Grafs that Davin is the Butcher of Brentaal IV, when he himself is the true serial killer.
- Free-Range Children: Well, it's not their fault, but their caretaker, CR-8R, is mostly helpless, not helped that as an amalgamation of several different droid parts, he can't exactly move around or be a swift as the kids, further worsened when he's reduced to a talking head by the time they get to Lothal.
- Only Sane Man: As their guardian due to the arrest of Rhyssa and Auric, he's the kids' voice of reason whenever they get into nasty trouble, which happens a lot in uncharted space, Wild Space, and the Outer Rim.
- Uncertain Doom: Korda is left behind on the ice planet in The Cold with no signs of rescue coming, which is the closest thing we'll get to death in this children's series.
- Unwanted Assistance: Krennic sends a KX droid to go with Tarkin to Agaris, much to the latter's annoyance. He suspects it might be a Stealth Insult.
- Would Hurt a Child: Plenty of characters, from Imperials like Korda to criminal scum like Vizago and the Shade.
